


King Trumps Jack

by coldfiredragon



Category: The Magicians (TV)
Genre: Angst, F/M, M/M, PUSH - Freeform, Prompt Fill, The Magicians Prompt exchange, bonding over mutual loss, mild season 4 spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-10
Updated: 2019-02-10
Packaged: 2019-10-25 12:09:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,112
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17724914
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/coldfiredragon/pseuds/coldfiredragon
Summary: Before the con Kady and Quentin play Push, and bond over their elephants in the room.A prompt fill for 'The Magicians Prompt Exchange' on Tumblr





	King Trumps Jack

**Author's Note:**

> This is for Czarrish! The prompt is as follows:   
> quentin and kady play a few rounds of push to get him ready for the con. they talk around the penny40&eliot/dead parent elephants in the room.
> 
> I didn't do the 'dead parents' part, because Q's father didn't die until after the con, but I covered the Eliot and Penny part. Enjoy.

Quentin took to Push like it was an old friend, for all they knew, in one of the older time loops it had been. He'd lost the first round they had played, then somewhere during the second he'd found his sea legs again and gone on a run to win ten straight flops. The last time Kady had seen him so confident was when he'd bullied them all into singing during the key quest, even Penny, her Penny, had bent to him at that moment. Thinking about her lost love was distracting, and when she threw her last card it turned up as a three instead of a ten. Quentin's delighted grin as he'd swept up the cards made her sick, and she shoved her chair back.

“Kady?” 

“I need a beer. Shuffle, and I'll cut.” He nodded, and Kady was momentarily mesmerized as his hands worked the deck, shuffling and sorting it. If Kady crossed her eyes, she could almost see the probability cloud shifting around his hands. Maybe the guy's discipline had something to do with cards, not that they would ever get to go back and finish to find out. If they got out of this alive, she doubted that any of them would even want to. She grabbed a pair of beers from the fridge, then walked back to the table. Her gaze darted into the living room, where Julia was reading a magazine, then towards the balcony where Penny and Frankie had disappeared. She envied their friendship. Her Penny had never told him about his childhood. He'd never mentioned his friends. But this Penny was so different -- he was more open. This not-her-Penny had unwittingly given him more insight into her lover's childhood than she'd ever been privy to. 

“I'm going to go out and get food, what would you guys like?” Julia announced as Kady set the beer in front of Quentin.

“I don't care.” Quentin bridged the deck a final time, then set it out for Kady to cut. “Take Penny and Frankie with you.” 

“I'll be fine, Q.” 

“Jules...” For a moment his voice sounded strained. His face pinched. “None of us should go anywhere alone... the McAllisters, the Library, the...” His voice trailed, and he reached for the beer. Kady watched in silence as he chugged half of it. Kady remembered the shock of both him and the thing wearing Eliot's skin abruptly appearing, both of them spotted and streaked with blood. She remembered how Quentin's hands had trembled when she'd taken him up to the bathroom to shower after Margo and Josh had left with it. She remembered how he'd flat out told Margo that he hadn't gotten any hint that his lover, that Eliot, was still in there somewhere. He wasn't okay, and he was trying to make sure the few people he had left stayed safe. “I know you have the whole impervious thing going for you, just... It can't hurt to be cautious, okay?” Julia drifted to his side, then gently ghosted her fingers over his shoulder. Kady was a little mad at her; she hadn't been there to see it, to see the casual cruelty accented with Eliot's voice and mannerisms.

“Take Penny and Frankie, Julia.” Maybe she could get Q to talk about it if they were alone. 

“Okay, jeez.” The other woman disappeared, then the three of them trooped back into the apartment. Penny's face was relaxed with amusement as Frankie told some outrageous story, then his hand brushed too close to Julia's, and Kady dropped her gaze away. She couldn't expect this Penny to love her, she certainly couldn't love him, but the idea that he might want a relationship with this new-to-him-Julia made something tighten in her chest. She picked up her beer and drained the whole thing once the penthouse door shut behind the three of them. 

“Are you cutting?” Quentin sounded more tired than eager, but they both knew he had to keep practicing if he wanted to win the Dewey. 

“Yeah.” Kady got a second beer, then took her half of the deck. Once they started playing the unease both of them were feeling seemed to melt away. Quentin got a little self-satisfied smirk at the corners of his mouth, and he relaxed back into the chair. Early in the round, they both managed to throw matching sixes, and Kady only landed four of the five cards she tossed towards her hat. Quentin sunk his full hand, then picked them up and froze. His thumb brushed over the one on top; then he shuffled through them. Kady was sure she'd managed to shift the probability into a horrible hand, then he laid out a pair of queens, a pair of kings, and hesitated over the last card. His thumb brushed it again; he blinked and his eyes dropped towards the floor. The confident set of his shoulders fell as he lay out a third king with an unexpected gentleness - a king that had Eliot's face. Kady stared down at her cards, flicked her fingers under the table, and changed the face of one of the three jacks in her hand to Penny's. She made sure to lay the Penny-jack on top.

“Kady.” Quentin's whisper was soft; his eyes were shining. 

“I know how hard this has to be.” She had watched Penny slip away from her bit by bit as the cancer had killed him, and the longer Eliot was possessed, the less likely they were to get him back.

“It's my fault,” Quentin whispered. To her surprise, Kady knew that guilt as well. If she hadn't pushed Penny to get information from the Library's poison room she might have gotten to see him from time to time; now he'd been replaced entirely by a not-imposter that shared his face. They had both made mistakes that had possibly cost them the people they loved most. 

“We can't give up on him.” She hadn't fully given up on her Penny until the quest had written her Penny out. There was still a chance for Eliot, at least she hoped for Quentin's sake that was the case. His hand rested listlessly on the table, and Kady reached across the table to squeeze it. 

“I haven't, not yet.” Quentin's voice had gone hard and determined. He swept up the cards he'd won, his kings having trumped her jacks. “One thing at a time.” He murmured. Kady was silently proud of him. There were moments he seemed ready to break, then the moments like this, like the one where he'd coaxed them all to sing, where she could see how much his confidence had grown.

**Author's Note:**

> Comments and Kudos are love, even anonymous ones!


End file.
